Film: El Espíritu de la Colmena
Director: Víctor Erice
Country: Spain
Released: October 1973
Runtime: 97 minutes
Genre: Drama
Studio: Elías Querejeta Producciones
Influenced: Carlos Saura, Alejandro Amenábar, Guillermo del Toro, J.A. Bayona, Céline Sciamma
Conceived during a period of significant political tension in Spain, towards the end of the Franco regime, The Spirit of the Beehive was Víctor Erice’s directorial debut, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Ángel Fernández Santos and Francisco J. Querejeta. Set in a small Castilian village in 1940, in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, the narrative centres on a young girl, Ana, and her slightly older sister, Isabel. After they watch James Whale’s 1931 horror classic Frankenstein at a makeshift cinema in their town, the two sisters become fascinated by the film, particularly by the scene in which the monster befriends a little girl but inadvertently kills her.
Isabel, the older sister, tries to answer Ana's questions about the movie by explaining that the monster is not dead but is a spirit. Ana becomes obsessed with this idea, starting a quest to find this spirit. Her fixation is fuelled by her discovery of a wounded, fugitive Republican Army soldier hiding in a nearby abandoned sheep pen, whom she believes is the spirit. Ana takes him food and a coat but does not report his presence to anyone but when the fugitive soldier is found and killed by Franco's police force, a distraught Ana runs away from home and gets lost in the wilderness. In her solitude, she encounters what she believes to be the spirit in the form of a giant mushroom, which she communicates with in silence.
On one level, the film depict's Ana's trajectory from innocence and curiosity to increasing isolation, but it's primarily a political critique of the Franco regime, using the metaphor of the beehive. The scene in which the girls' father explains the workings of a beehive is significant because it provides a metaphor for authoritarian regimes like Franco's, where workers do not question their leader, the queen bee. What's also innovative about The Spirit of the Beehive is its unique narrative style, combining elements of surrealism, psychological horror and social commentary, and its distinctive cinematography, praised for its golden, autumnal colour palette and painterly visuals that lend the film a dreamlike quality.
Often referred to as one of the greatest Spanish films of all time, it marked the beginning of the New Spanish Cinema movement, opening up the path for more films with similar political and social critiques in the country. Despite its initial limited release due to censorship under the Franco regime, the film has gained international acclaim over the years and continues to be celebrated for its timeless exploration of childhood, imagination, fear and the impact of political repression on ordinary lives.
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